My Name Is Tron
by palomino333
Summary: Pre-and during Tron Legacy. Clu tests his greatest warrior's loyalty by presenting him with someone very important.


I enjoyed Tron: Legacy very much, but I felt sorry for Tron. The poor program freed his system, and his reward was enslavement by brainwashing. I am glad, however, that his free will was restored in the end. I know that Yori, his mate from the previous film, was not in this movie because Cindy Morgan wasn't cast. Still, I thought it would be interesting to give a reason as to why she wasn't, and this was born.

* * *

"We have another rebel that you must…take care of." The program raised his head to look up at the screen that now had taken the place of the window. It had looked out over the vibrant blue hues of a city that was incomplete without perfection. He was now staring into the eyes of Clu, the liberator and restorer of this practical utopia so wronged. They danced playfully as he challenged, "Are you up to it?" A smirk was the accompaniment.

Rinzler's first answer was to bow, indicating that he was. He had been surveying this scene long enough, and thirsted for action. That movement was cancelled, however, by something tingling in the back of his mind, something dreadfully wrong. He hadn't experienced it before to his knowledge. It couldn't have been because there were so many rebels he had had to de-rezz lately. He was compelled to destroy all who stood in the way of him and his freedom from the manipulative User race. Yet, it still remained. Was there something wrong with his vitals? A self-diagnostic flashed before his vision in an instant. He was perfectly fine. Still, the dark foreboding remained, causing him to give a single nod instead. It was an acceptable, yet less zealous reaction. If Clu paid any mind to that, he did not show any signs of doing so. He replied with a small chuckle, "You never fail to please me, do you?"

It was only after his leader had vanished that Rinzler realized the only other time Clu had let out a laugh near him was the very first time he had been ordered to terminate someone. As intriguing as it sounded, the warrior let the thought go with a half-shake of his head. The Game Grid was the only place for diversions. This decision being made, he turned on his heel and promptly left.

XXXXXX

'You don't need to worry. This one has absolutely no comprehension of how to fight. In fact, as soon as the restraints were put on her, she began to senselessly babble about how unjust I am." Clu, explained gesturing animatedly with his hands. The leader and his follower were en route to the assigned victim. Rinzler gave Clu a sidelong look by tilting which was met with a grin. The grin was amplified in intensity by the bright white ceiling, floor, and walls of the hallway.

"That's why she has to go. She's a pathologic, a lost cause. You," he clapped his servant on the shoulder in commendation, "are the foil and champion. You will continue to show why such fanaticism can't be tolerated." Although he glowed with pride over receiving such an honor, the program felt the icy feeling from before grip him more tightly this time. He was grateful that his expression was impossible to read through his visor. "Now," Clu added, turning to the dark gray door at the end of the hallway, "it is time for you to be exactly that."

He placed his hand to the door panel, and it slid open. He gestured for Rinzler to enter first, and was met with compliance. The soldier took a few calculating steps into the room, and stopped to take a brief, testing look at the area. The room was large, square, and dark, save for a medium sized- oval of sickly blue light cast in the middle. The area was bare of everything and everyone but the program and two others, who were standing in this light.

A guard stood dutifully on the left and right of the prisoner. They acknowledged the newcomer with a respectful nod. The middle, however, acted far differently. She slowly raised her head, asking in a cold tone, "Do you wish to try your hand at converting me again?" When Rinzler saw her face, he felt as if a vice was slowly closing on him.

Her blonde hair, once braided neatly, stood out in tufts, and hung over her face in strings. A gaping black hole took the place of her left eye, the data having been previously destroyed. Her right eyebrow bore a harsh laceration, the skin and hair stopping at an angular tear. Her nose was bent. Her right cheekbone was prominent, so much so that her observer realized she was undernourished. The shadow of missing data trailed out of the otherwise white right side of her mouth. She was barely holding herself up. The more the soldier took in, the more the thought that this was wrong nagged at him. He had seen her before, although not as this shadow of her former self. She had once been pretty and confident, but that was gone. Her cerulean light barely glowed.

Her undamaged eyebrow rose for a moment at the newcomer, and some thought passed through her being. The next moment, she let out a defeated sigh, her face becoming even uglier than before in her hopelessness. She did not lower her head as she whispered, "It is true. The executioner has arrived." For a moment, an insane idea flashed through the mind of her words' subject: de-rezz these foolish guards, take her and run, heal her, make her pretty again, comfort her….But why? Why would it be worth his time? She was the enemy.

"Yori, Yori, Yori, must you always be so discontented?" Clu taunted as he entered in past his servant. Yori…That name stirred something in Rinzler. A small, insignificant gear began to grind.

She narrowed her remaining eye at the leader. "I was not always this way. You know that better than anyone, save for myself, in this room." Rinzler let his indignation at her snap toward his master pass, deciding to do so because of her piteous appearance. How could she show any emotion so proudly after such degradation?

Clu smiled condescendingly. "But Yori, how could you say that when I brought you such a visitor?" He gestured to his follower for emphasis. Indignant, she said nothing back. Clu didn't chuckle; he outright laughed. His warrior turned his head toward him in surprise.

Once he regained composure of himself, he replied, "I can't honestly believe your vision has been that damaged." Yori's offended look turned puzzled as she fixed her gaze on Rinzler again, who was wondering why he only partly wanted her to look away.

She gasped. "Tron!" The program felt as if part of him had been torn away, but he didn't know what. Anger at her making him feel this way quickly followed. Clu clapped his hands once with a grin that threatened to split his face apart.

The next moment, she was tugging against the guards. "What have you done to him? Let him go!" The guards forced her to her knees, but still she tried to pull away. Her unkempt hair made her look wild.

One guard raised his shock stick to settle her down, but Clu ordered him against it. "She will tire herself out." He foretold the future. A few moments later, she was gasping for breath. She peered up through the strands of her hair at the two standing before her as she did so. Clu was the first to make his way over to her, with Rinzler following a few paces master fell to one knee before the prisoner, and tilted her head up with one hand. The movement disgusted the program behind him. Rinzler again wondered why he felt such emotions, and decided to attribute it to her unsightly appearance once more. "I have done nothing, Yori," Clu replied in a superior tone, as if speaking to a much younger program.

She looked down. "I fail to realize that."

He let go of her, and stood. "That's your way. You fail to realize your flaw, and so you must be erased."

"Tron, you would never allow him to talk to me like this!" She cried out in desperation. The program she was addressing didn't budge. Her tone grew hysterical. "You've been corrupted! Perhaps Flynn—" A sharp slap from Clu cracked across her face. Tears from the pain and humiliation welled up in her one eye.

"You are on your knees, and you still cry out to this savior that won't come?" Her assailant mocked. Rinzler suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to cause him bodily harm. That was immediately dispatched with the question of why to do so. "Well, this has been enjoyable, but all good things must come to an end."

Clu's words were a signal. The soldier took it by stepping forward and removing his two bright orange disks. Her eye was immediately drawn to them, and she began to shake her head hastily. "No, no! Tron, you wouldn't do this!" Emotional tears began to run down her face. Why did the program feel so unhappy to see them? Indifference would be his typical reaction. Nevertheless, he began to switch his disks to attack mode.

"Tron, please! This isn't like you!" He still did not waver. The urge to do so was quickly becoming more and more pronounced with each moment. He wanted to end it. Yori lowered her head in defeat. "Tron…" The rest was incoherent.

The next instant seemed to defy everything. Her executioner was a moment away from taking her life when he suddenly stopped. He slowly went down on his knees, and released his grip on the disks. His head was down. Just as quickly, he stood again, and turned to face Clu, who wore an unreadable expression. "Dismissed." Rinzler never turned his head back to look at the prisoner as he left, but he did hear the loud shatter that indicated her deresolution. It echoed into the hallway, and hauntingly replayed itself for him once more in that sense.

XXXXXX

Rinzler ran a surprised hand over his face, left bare without his helmet. Liquid was on his fingers. He knew the what, but not the why: tears. Footsteps sounded in his direction. He quickly replaced his helmet.

Clu entered the room with a calm smile on his face. The servant felt it burn like a brand, and lowered his head in shame. A hand was laid comfortingly on his shoulder, and he looked up. "I am not angry with you." Clu walked to the far corner of the luminescent sitting room to pour himself a drink. Rinzler followed him intently with his gaze.

"Of course, I did tell you to dispose of her, but the job was finished, nonetheless." The off-hand words stung the soldier, but he knew he deserved them. Why had he allowed such a miniscule program to live? Pity? How could that be true, since he had felt none for all of the other prisoners he had dispatched? His disks were pressed into his hands. "I know that you will do better next time."

As Clu drained his glass in one shot, his warrior understood the meaning of his words. He had much to prove before he would be trusted again. The weight of this expectation pushed heavily on him, but it had not nearly been as unbearable as the previous burden. He at least could be thankful for his freedom from that.

XXXXXX

It only took one shared stare. Rinzler locked eyes with Flynn, his sworn enemy, and everything came back. His belief in the Users…The fight for his life on the Game Grid under Commander Sark's tyranny…Destroying the MCP and retaking the system…Battling to his last breath for Flynn to be saved… "I fight for the Users!" He declared, ramming Clu's aerial vehicle, and effectively destroying it.

Their hand-to-hand battle was brisk, punctuated by the fact that they were falling into the Sea of Simulation while they fought. It was Clu who won out in the end, snatching the rod from him, and taking off.

The sea was cold and unforgiving. The warrior knew as he began to sink slowly to the bottom that his time of serving Flynn was over. The guilt of what he had done and could not have done welled up in him, filling him with self-loathing. ginger armor slowly lost its color to be replaced by azure. Revving was heard as he rebooted, his strength replenished.

A motionless body floated above him in the light his body cast, but he could not see it; the helmet's visor was too dark. He reached up, and lifted it off his head. It was as if he had removed some horrible shackle. Letting go of it, he allowed the headgear to fall away from him.

He could see Yori plainly from above him, smiling, undamaged, and happy once more, just as he had rightfully remembered her. He knew it was only an illusion, but he was far from pushing this image away. Although he could not touch her, he could feel her warmth, as if she truly was before him. A gentle smile, so alien to him after all of his time, appeared on his face. There would come a time when he too would pass on. Although he could not forgive himself for allowing her to be murdered, he had atoned for that in his betrayal of Clu. Yori had never turned on him, even when he had been dreadfully close to slicing her neck in half. He had her pardon, and that was a gift no one could ever take from him.

Her image vanished as he swam upwards, breaking the surface of the sea. When the words left him, they went as a whisper, but to him they were a shout that resounded throughout the entire system. "My name is Tron!"


End file.
